Like eyes that looked on Wastes
by jomiddlemarch
Summary: The nuns saw so much.


"Henry, you've got to stop this. Now," Emma insisted.

She had left him hours ago, when he dismissed her so brusquely, and tried to take the hurt he'd left her with, a new hurt that she collected carefully with the others, and use it to help the boys and the sick contraband Miss Jenkins was treating nearly single-handedly. She had been unsure of her welcome from the Abolitionist but remembered how Nurse Mary had looked when she went and when she returned and how she had spoken of Miss Jenkins with such admiration and respect and Emma had resolved in this way, as she had in so many others, to emulate the Head Nurse who had become her friend, a dear friend, before she was sent away. Emma had thought she would like to write to Nurse Mary, "just Mary, or even May, my cousins called me that," before she retired for the night and she had looked forward to telling her about the progress Miss Jenkins made, how the little girl Lula had recovered and how well the children were learning their letters, how they prized their slates. That had been the dessert she promised herself now that she lived in Mansion House where rewards were in short supply, whether sugar-dusted cakes or sweet words. But Sister Isabella had found her in the front hall, wiping her hands on her apron like a poorly trained housemaid and had suggested she look in on the Chaplain again "for I think he's in need of some ministering himself," and so Emma had returned to the room Henry had been scrubbing when the sun was high in the sky and the light chased the shadows to the corners. She had discovered him still on his knees, still scrubbing, but streaking the oak floorboards with the blood from his raw knuckles.

"Henry! Stop it, for Heaven's sake," she repeated as he kept dragging the brush on the floor and through the cloudy water. He would have used the common lye soap and his hands must be agony but he moved like an automaton. She looked around, wishing for someone more experienced, someone he would trust more—Nurse Mary, Dr. Foster, even Matron, to appear and let her retreat but there was no one but the two of them and the sound of the wet bristles on the wood. Earlier, he had argued with her, his words few but pointed, but now he hardly seemed to understand she was there. She knelt on the floor beside him and took hold of his wrists with her own. Her hands were slender but strong, stronger now from the work she was growing familiar with, and she didn't hesitate to use all the power in her grasp to stop him, laying her hands atop his and pressing them to the wet floor.

"Let me go," he said dully, giving her the briefest glance with those blue eyes that had been wonderfully warm just a few days ago, fond and confiding, now like the ice on a pond, concealing the life below in a cold, dark world. She felt the roughness of his abraded skin, the hot slick of his blood, and she let herself flare with the anger she had been told a lady never revealed.

"God damn it, Henry! I won't. I won't let you do this anymore, this, this…penance that does no good, I won't let you punish yourself like this, give way to your shame and your pride," she cried. He looked up at the last, at the word _pride_ —that he had not expected.

"You think I'm proud of what I've done? I killed a man, Emma," he retorted flatly.

"What did you expect? We are fighting a War—and you went to a battlefield. Your enemy tried to shoot you, shoot us both, and you stopped him. He wasn't a boy you were trying to save on the ward, he wasn't asking for absolution before he died—he wanted us dead, you quickly, me…I shouldn't like to think," she replied. She had thought about it a long time, once it was done and the night had passed into memory and she was convinced that was the heart of it. Henry had wanted to be a soldier and a saint; he had not realized he would have to choose though he had chosen when forced.

"I am a man of God," he said, closing his eyes, as if he was reminding himself, convincing himself.

"Not then you weren't. You cannot be everything. You are not beyond the rest of men, that's what I mean by your pride. The boys, the Union boys and the Rebs, they make their choice to stop being farmers or students, laborers, lawyer, fathers and husbands—they become soldiers and that is what they are. That's their sacrifice. You didn't think you had to make one, a sacrifice, but you did. You do. But not this, Henry," she said, touching his hands more gently, stroking the sides of his palms with her fingers, remembering how they had once caressed her cheek, her throat in the darkness, how many times he had paused in offering her some item she needed. She had noticed every time though she hadn't permitted herself to think how much she liked it. She thought of the dreams she had, before Ayres' farm and since, of Henry and his hands, soothing her, embracing her, that night again filled with his frantic apology, nights that had never happened, silvery with moonlight and clematis, seeing his hand upon her bare arm before she turned to face him in her shift, how real it had felt when he moved her loose hair off her shoulders, trailed his hands along her spine to pull her closer. He might see it in her eyes, all of it, if he chose to look.

"I don't know—Emma, I don't know what to do. I can't pray, I can't sleep," he muttered. Had anyone ever turned to her this way before, in abject misery, trusting she would find something to say? This was beyond nursing or even friendship, this was something she had no name for.

"You can rest. You can drink the tea I bring you and let me bandage you and you can do work that makes a difference—with the boys, Miss Jenkins's people, my Belinda. You can trust God will find you again and that He knows what your prayers are, even if you can't find the words," she said softly.

"Who are you, Emma Green? How are you so wise, so young, so very, very beautiful?" he asked, turning his palms so they touched as if they were taking their vows.

"I'm your friend," she answered, reluctant to say anything that wasn't the truth, that might distress him.

"No, you're not. You're my dearest," he said quietly, seriously. She found herself wondering who this Henry was, who made love with bloody hands and a despairing tone and eyes that still held the light, like her grandmother Helen's star sapphires.

"That's as may be," she found herself saying, grandmother Helen's favorite expression, "But you must come along now, leave this. I have to attend to your hands," she added, rising slowly from the floor as he did, both of them wet and streaked with grime, his blood pink on his white sleeves, her apron.

"What a pair we are!" she said thoughtlessly, as thoughtless as Alice had ever been or Jimmy, that she'd scolded and mocked them for, as Nurse Mary would never be, with her tender, deliberate insight. Emma closed her mouth suddenly as if she might swallow the words back and heard something she hadn't been able to recall for weeks—Henry's low laugh.

"Oh, Emma. Thank you. With all my heart, thank you…dearest," he said after a moment and she saw a new Henry, her reflection in his blue eyes, the beginning of peace.


End file.
